Though many of the retailers mentioned in the WSJ article now see a healthy percentage of annual sales from the Internet, some, like Target, underperform the market. Target disclosed that “online sales currently make up less than 2 percent of its $73 billion in overall sales.”

The current percentage of e-commerce sales of overall retail is 5.8 percent according to the US Commerce Department.

The following are estimates for the online sales (per Internet Retailer) of a number of major US retailers and the corresponding percentages (my calculation) of their annual revenue:

Staples: $10.3 billion (42 percent)

Wal-Mart: $7.7 billion (17 percent)

Sears: $4.2 billion (10.5 percent)

Office Depot: $4.1 billion (38 percent)

Best Buy: $3.3 billion (6.4 percent)

Macy’s: $3.2 billion (11 percent)

Target: $1.5 billion (2 percent)

The underlying assumption in the article is that e-commerce represents the future of commerce; and retailers whose e-commerce sales are low are thus in trouble. That’s a false notion and representative of outdated thinking.

In-store sales will continue to dominate e-commerce. Moreover, traditional retailers have a clear advantage over most e-commerce sites other than Amazon. However, consumers increasingly want retailers to be channel agnostic. Consumers want the convenience of shopping online, coming into stores or buying online and picking up in stores. There are very few e-commerce-only sellers that can compete accordingly.

US retailers that are doing the best job with this so-called “omni-channel” approach (including integrating mobile) will be the winners. E-commerce will continue to grow, but it’s only a small part of the overall retail story.

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About The Author

Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land. He writes a personal blog, Screenwerk, about connecting the dots between digital media and real-world consumer behavior. He is also VP of Strategy and Insights for the Local Search Association. Follow him on Twitter or find him at Google+.